Failure is Inevitible

I’m not cooking. I had such grand plans for this challenge, I was going to learn to cook! But it hasn’t quite worked out. I blame Tiff.

First off, my lovely wife got a new job that was suppose to keep her from getting home until about hour or so after I got home. This changed on day number two. Now, not only does she get home before me, waiting for me to cook something, but she leaves just before me in the morning and throws off my whole morning routine, but that’s besides the point.

Second off, on day number three, it was Tiff who made a pretty convincing argument for eating out. I don’t really remember the particulars, but I do remember the guilty pleasure of eating outside at Foster’s in downtown Manassas on a beautiful Saturday evening. The other several times we’ve eaten out weren’t all quite as enjoyable, but they still beat cooking.

We did find this amazing new place to eat, some Chinese place hidden away about a mile from our house. It was the next Saturday night, just about suppertime, and we were the only people there. Despite that, it is amazing. It’s the best Chinese food I’ve ever had. They served hot tea along with the food, which was amazing, and I’m not a tea drinker! And they had this hot mustard that wasn’t hot in your mouth, but somehow blasted your sinuses with this crazy sensation. It was amazing! We went back three days later!

Thirdly, Tiff couldn’t handle my cooking. What seems perfectly acceptable to me, doesn’t quite hack in the snooty world of Tiffany. Thirty-one days of dinners seems easy enough to me to break down: 5 spaghetti nights, 4 Pasta-Roni nights, 2 Mac’N’Cheese nights, 3 frozen ravioli nights, 6 nights of cereal, 3 nights of Grilled Cheeses, 4 nights of doughnuts, 1 night of chili and 3 nights of leftovers. Tiff likes a little more variety and after three straight nights of pasta was very curious what I planned to do with the left over sour cream. That night Tiff made Mexican. It was delicious.

And that gets to the last point, this challenge was always going to be an uphill battle, one that any reasonable me should have had the foresight to see the inherent flaws in. I mean, I’m not a cooker, I’m an eater. I’m a good eater at that too. Why should I shy away from that?

Cooking... with John

It’s a new month and with that comes a new challenge. I’ve got a long list of ones I’d like to try, but after I take out the ones that would be too hard, too much of a change, too dangerous, or just too expensive, the list is much, much smaller.

This month’s challenge stems from necessity. Tiff recently got a job that changes her daily routine around a bit and leaves me home alone until 6:45 or so. That being said, and with a great deal of anxiety, that leaves me in charge of dinner.

Over the last few years, me being in charge of dinner usually means a trip to some sort of quick-serve, not-fast-food dinner. Ever since Tiff became a vegetarian, the selection is almost always Five Guys or Chipotle. They’ve got some great food, but I need to learn to cook.

So this month’s challenge is a two-parter. First off, no going out to eat, especially on weekdays. And the bigger of the two, will be cooking every night.

Tonight, I’m starting out easy. On the menu is pasta.

Just to make it official:

Cooking: 1 Month

Let the Games Begin!

The end of September, how I will miss you so. Despite a depressingly low number of posts, I am going to consider this sacrifice a rousing success with a hardy, “Har! Har!” of approval. I’m not sure what exactly that means but I said it, and I meant it. I mean, in my opinion, with just the one infraction (playing Wii at my in-laws) I made it through the month without any video games.

Looking back, this one wasn’t even all that hard when it came right down to it, which is a bit of a surprise. Sure, I battled boredom, but I did so with pizzazz. I started a painting, I read a little bit, I became interested in some TV shows. Okay, so maybe it was a boring pizzazz, but I made it through.

I think the main key to my success was unplugging and putting away the playstation. It seems so simple, but it really worked. It was that extra little hurdle between me and video games made it happen for me. There were times when I was bored and thought, this would be a good time to play a quick game of soccer, EA Games-style, but I had enough will-power to stop myself before I took the time and energy to get the system out, hook it up, and turn it on. Perhaps that’s a character flaw, and perhaps that character flaw is something I should look into sorting out, but this time, I used my laziness to my advantage and I’m the better for it.

Perhaps on top of my hardy, “Har! Har!,” I should include an extra “Har!” as I’m not all that eager to start back up with the video games. Well, Tiff’s been playing a card game video game, that has me interested, but soccer and football, it would probably be fun, but I’m not sure if it’s worth it. Plus, I would have to get out the system, hook it all up, and turn it on…

All in all, I’m done with the challenge, but I’m curious to see how much longer I’ll last. Maybe I can go two months on this one. Maybe three. So there’ll be no more posts, but I’ll update when the playstation re-emerges.

No Video, No Game, Make John... Something, Something

I haven't posted in a while, and it's with a heavy heart that I have to admit that I am a failure.
I played some video games over the weekend. It was on the Wii with my sister-in-law. I resisted briefly, but I was encouraged by Tiff. Plus, I didn't want to seem weird in front of her family, so I didn't put up much of a fight.

They got a new game... Wii Sports Resort. It's pretty neat! You can canoe and play basketball and ping-pong and archery and water-skiing and fencing. I sucked at all of them! There's something up with the Wii - I seem to be pretty bad at all of their games. The only one that halfway decent at is MarioKart... which if you are going to be halfway decent at one thing, it really should be MarioKart.

Anyways, that's all in the past now, and I'm not sure how to score it. In my defense, I was neither playing at home, nor was I playing alone. So, while I'm a bit upset with myself, I think I'm giving myself a pass on this one.

That being said, I'm on day 21 since I began, and my thoughts towards playing games now range from "This is stupid, one game of soccer won't hurt" to "I'm bored, I wish I could play" to "I wonder what the guys on my team are up to... oh yeah, they're not real." It's that one that kind of worries me, and makes me wonder if one month is too short.

We'll see how the next week and a half or so plays out though. No more slip-ups though... I'm seeing it through.

Hooray for Sports!

I’ve quickly adopted sports as my means of passing time. With DC United making a late season push for the playoffs and college football and the NFL starting up, I picked the right time to do this. It seems there is always something on.

Even when there isn’t sports on, there’s something about sports on. People making predictions, deconstructing teams, and just talking about sports because they are analysts and experts. It’s a bit ridiculous. It’s a bit unnecessary. It makes me wonder what an analyst would say about my soccer team in the video game. I’m sure they would have nothing but praise for my greatness.

It is nice not having an element of control to the game. I’ve always watched sports, but if the game wasn’t going the way that I liked, I used to switch pretty frequently to video games and check the score every now and then. With video games, I always know who’s going to win the game… me… or at least most of the time. And there’s no restart button in sports. Whatever happens happens. If I can remove myself from it, I guess it’s a pretty good lesson.

Tiff is not too thrilled though. She’s over-ruling the Notre Dame-Michigan game and asking “Are you going to watch soccer for two hours every Saturday night?” I’m not sure what to say. It sounds like a good idea to me. I haven’t told her that the NFL starts tomorrow. We’ll have to wait and see how that goes over.

Loooong Weekend

So Labor Day Weekend is essentially over and I have to say that three days makes for a very long weekend. Sure I did stuff; I did just about everything that I could think of, but I think on a normal weekend I would spend a solid few hours each day playing games - most likely soccer. Trying to avoid the temptation of playing, I wound up just feeling all antsy-in-my-pantsy and sitting around doing nothing much.

I've spent most of that time trying to figure out what sort of hobby I could get into. I tried to write, which didn't last too long, but I may give it another shot. Tiffany's trying to get me to start painting, which I think I would enjoy, if I thought I had something to paint. I read a little bit. I drove around a little bit. I watched a whole heckuva lot of TV. But none of it equaled a hobby.

Then this morning I started to wonder what normal people do. After a little bit of thought, it dawned on me that I should probably be doing like house maintenance and work on our new house... it still has a lot of work to do.

So, I cleaned out a corner of the garage! It wasn't much, but it needed doing. And I didn't feel so bad watching all that television today.

It's Getting Expensive...

I don’t mind not playing video games thus far. So far, after three days, I’ve gone to a soccer game, watched TV until I was bored out of my gourd, and went out for dinner and movie.

In other words, I spent fifty bucks, I was bored out of my gourd, and I spent fifty bucks. Videogames, in addition to be good mind-numbing entertainment, in the long run is pretty cheap. I bought a Playstation 2 around April of 2006 for somewhere in the neighborhood of $120. I shelled out the big bucks! In three years, I’ve probably bought 10 games for a total of maybe $200. (Although, I’ve only spent time playing a couple of games, that cost me $20 and $2 respectively.) Let’s tack on $50 for electricity and other costs, whatever they might be, and say I’ve spent $370 all together on admittedly the predominant form of entertainment for me.

In comparison, in an effort to wow my wife, I hoped to buy tickets to the Washington Ballet’s performance of Don Quixote. The only tickets I could find on their website were sold by groups of four productions, and the cheapest tickets I could find were $211 a piece. A Piece! That’s just crazy.

Poker’s a different story entirely, but in my defense, I hardly ever play.

It’s been a wonderful few days, even with the lull in the middle, but if this keeps up, I’m going to run out of money long before my month is up. I need to find a hobby and fast! I need something to do to fill my time and make me think that I could live a life without videogames.

Back in the Game - or Not

It’s a year later, and I’m still playing video games. I just played last night and had a blast doing it. I played soccer on the Playstation2 and I played poker on the internet… because I’m just that good I won the tournament!

I didn’t realize what the date was until today and now I’m a little disappointed in myself. I’ve wanted to kick-start this whole ill-named blog of personal challenges and I thought it would be good if I took up the challenge exactly 12 months after I said that I would. So… I’m not sure what, if anything, this challenge will lead me to write about, but I’m doing it.

No Video Games: 1 Month

Video Games

Yep, I'm starting up the old sacrifices again. And I'm starting with a heavyweight - video games. I'm not sure if I could say I'm addicted to video games, but I sure play more than my fair share. I probably play a couple of hours each day and would play a lot more if I could. Basically, it's a big time suck, that I can say with certainty got in the way of my other sacrifices. I'm curious, with no other projects/sacrifices going on, what I will do with all this free time.

So ... No Video Games - 1 Month.

Sweets... Take Two

I'm giving up sweets in the month of September. I did this last November and by the end of the month I really did feel a lot better. I didn't write much about it last time, so maybe I'll try harder this time.

Admittedly though, and perhaps more significantly, I'm not doing this for the story of it - I'm not doing it for the blog. I'm doing it because I want to feel that good feeling again. My main sacrifice this month will be video games. So... just like before, no sweets, no soda.

The Sacrifice of Sacrifices

By now I'm sure most of you have given up on checking in on this blog to see how our sacrificing is going. We started off the year with high hopes of steering away from the food challenges and on to bigger & better things like exercising and saving the world, but we hit a major road block early on, and we figure you need an explanation! In case you missed it before, John has hives. To be more specific - John has Chronic Idiopathic Urticaria (CIU) and Angioedema. The first long name means that he has an autoimmune problem that causes hives, and nobody has any idea why, and therefor no real idea how to treat it. The second thing means he needs to carry an EPI pen all the time so that his throat doesn't close up. I should also mention that outbreaks can last from 6 months to 30 years. Fun times ahead, folks.

After failing the Exercise challenge miserably (who wants to work out when insanely itchy from head to toe?) John finally got the right combination of medicines from the allergist, and we thought we were good to go on a new challenge. Although the Savings challenge went well, it ended around the same time as the medicine. The hives came back slowly and are now almost as bad as 3 months ago.

After numerous doctor visits, one ER trip, 8 weeks of steroids, and a 57 shot allergy test, he's no better off - unless you count being on a first name basis with the pharmacist and finding out he's allergic to cockroaches (the Americans, not the Germans). On top of this, because his immune system is all wacky, he almost always has some form of a cold.

It's a pretty miserable situation with no end in sight... and needless to say, the gusto for blogging has been lost in the mix.

I suggested evolving the blog into a "John Duffy's Mystery Illness- the search for outbreak triggers!" and each month we could limit the prime trigger suspects (of which there are thousands), but he didn't find that quite as funny as I did... SO, the sacrifices are officially over. For now anyway.

But, just to update our green challenge... here is a list of some of the things we've changed this month:

1. We now recycle our cans (shame on us before).


2. I always use lids on my pots and pans when cooking (and the correct burner size for the pot). Also I have stopped opening the oven to check on food. tsk tsk
   
3. We've changed all the light bulbs that we can to compact fluorescent (just one keeps half a ton of carbon dioxide out of the air over the course of its lifetime!)


4. We don't use the "dry" feature on our dishwasher.


5. We buy in bulk when we can to save on packaging, and we refill things like cleaner, dish soap, hand soap, etc.


6. We've cut out an hour of t.v. each day this month that we would usually watch.
   
7. We unplug things that aren't needed.


8. We've stopped using hot water for laundry except for sheets, and I've cut back on how much detergent I use.


9. We signed up for a Page-A-Day email calendar on tips to go green.


10. I stopped using liquid fabric softener... mainly b/c our dispenser broke, but that counts. I won't start again. :)


11. We've been trying to conserve water use.


12. We've looked into "green funerals". (This was going to be a really great blog, but it didn't happen. This is my favorite.)


13. And my favorite change... thanks to Carrell we now have the coolest reusable shopping bags ever which hold what would be around 10 bags of groceries. And they are much easier to carry up our four flights of stairs. Thanks, Carrell!
    

We have lots left to do, including a tree to plant, but that is a good start for the challenge, and you have to start somewhere.

Baby, it's Cold Outside

As part of the green challenge, Tiff and I are trying to conserve electricity, as power production from coal-burning factories is one of the top greenhouse gas emitters. We had vowed not to turn on our heat or our AC as it's April, the first month of spring. We knew not every day would be 70 degrees and sunny, but we told ourselves we could manage any seasonal fluctuation.

Last week, however, had some cold, cold days, notably Thursday, when it got into the 30s outside and 55 inside. 55 is down right cold. It's also the recommended temperature for night time home heating, according to many power-saving lists on the web. (Daytime temperatures aren't suppose to exceed 68. Tiff and I usually keep it at 70, and that usually feels cold in our drafty apartment.) 55 is also the lowest reading on our thermostat, so I should be saying "I think it was 55."

In any event, now, four days later, we are both very sick, with nasty little colds and my body is counteracting the low temps with some high temps of its own. Despite feeling lousy, I still caught a foul ball at an Orioles game this weekend.

7:00 Hour

More on the 7:00 hour, which I predict will be the topic of several posts. Our sacrificing skills aren't quite top-notch yet as neither of us suggested giving up the 8:00 hour as Sydney did. We wouldn't want to miss American Idol or, hmmm... that's really all we watch.

Yesterday, too, I spent part of the hour on the computer, which I feel guilty about. I understand that we can't turn off the computer for that short time, but I think perhaps we should let the poor machine at least rest for that time.

The second hour is an hour of our choosing, but it has to be during the time that we would normally be using the television, including playing video games like NCAA Football 2005, which I still play all too often. It has been the 6:00 hour both nights so far, but it may change tonight, it being Thursday and there's nothing on TV.

Also, we have turned on the lights as it gets closer to 8:00, but pretty soon the sunlight should allow us not to have to do this.

Exercise Counting

My exercising has all but stopped. This is a problem that I hope I will soon correct, but until then, I've moved the counter to the bottom of the page.

An Hour a Day

The first sacrifice in our Go Green challenge is - drumroll please - the 7:00 hour. That's right, in honor of Earth Hour we are going to turn stuff off for two hours each and every day, with 7pm-8pm being mandatory. Admittedly, this will apply primarily to turning the TV off as we have become regular viewers of the Wheel of Fortune/Jeopardy! hour. Between the two of us we are far superior to the contestants in the former, but we still need to bone up on our random trivia knowledge for the latter.

Some things, however, will not be turned off. The refrigerator for instance, but that's for obvious reasons. Clocks will be left on because that would just be a pain in the ol' keister each and every day. And most notably, our aging and temperamental computer, which with every shutdown, we - meaning usually Tiff - have to take the back off and jiggle a cord while flipping a switch to start it back up... all the while risking electrocution.

We will also be limiting our light usage for these times. I can't say that we won't use the lights ever, because we aren't freaks and if the weather is crummy, I don't want you people out there to think we are sitting around doing nothing. But we will make an effort.

Anyways, while I doubt seriously that this will make a huge splash in our power consumption, let alone the consumption of our community, state, nation, or world, it's more about the principle of the thing. And who knows, maybe we'll find we like the time away from the electric stuff.

Go Green

Last Saturday, many cities around the world turned out their lights. Inspired by the efforts of Sydney, Australia, who sat around in the dark last year, Earth Hour took place at 8pm local time hoping to reduce the amount of energy used.

Hmmm... the Opera House kind of loses it's glory without lights. Anyways, the effect of Sydney's 2007 campaign was a reduction of energy by over 10% for that one hour. This translates into a massive reduction of greenhouse emissions - according to their website it would be equivalent to taking 48,616 cars off the road for a year. That's pretty impressive. So impressive the world took notice and many cities followed suit. Here's the Roman Colosseum last Saturday:

So all this I would normally look at and think "Wow! That's really quite something! It's about time somebody started taking action." And then I would go along my merry way. This year, however, as John Duffy's Sacrifices is limping along, I thought it was the right time that I took action. The world has been sacrificing in the name of John Duffy for too long! It is only right hat I start sacrificing for it!

So, for the entire month of April I will go green in many different ways from recycling to conservation. I hope it works out.

Food

It has been a month on the savings challenge and I think I'm carrying it into a second month. The first month went alright. This weekend kind of threw everything out of whack however as we got Chipotle on Friday, along with two (bad) movies from Blockbuster, and on Saturday, we got Subway. I seem to have very little will power towards the end of the month.

Anyways, I have learned a lot from making this sacrifice, particularly in regards to food. I understood that going out to eat cost a lot of money, but I never realized how fast it can add up. This weekend alone, which before February wouldn't be too far out of the norm, cost over $25! ...and that's just for two meals. Quite often, in fact, that $25 pricetag would account for one dining experience, then you could add a trip to Chipotle or Subway on top of that. The thing is, too, I would much rather be eating some of that lentil soup I mentioned a few posts ago.

Moreover, even the food from the store adds up. I know that we have to eat to live, and I eat, but it turns out that I buy a lot more than I eat. Whether it's cooking too much and not eating leftovers, or buying something that I normally eat that I just don't eat, I end up throwing away a lot of food. Throwing away food is like throwing away money. I need to improve on buying only what I am going to eat.

Tiff and I were good for awhile on planning our meals out and sticking to it. Well, Tiff still has the schedule of meals, somewhere along the way, however, we just stopped looking at it. I think it's time to get back to scheduling and good ole fashioned home-cooking. After I eat the second half of my Subway pastrami sandwich, of course.

By the way, this second month, I'm going easy on the blogging. I've got a few things I should have mentioned last month that I hope to write about soon, but then I'm just doing the basics. Savings isn't too interesting.

Chipotle was $11.45. Subway was $14.16. Blockbuster was $9.01
Total cost: $34.62

Duffy's Juice

I haven't written about juicing for awhile, so I need to draw my little non-sacrifice to close so there will likely only be a few more posts. I should say though, that I will continue my juicing and in fact, I really think it can change your life and would strongly urge everyone to try it. It might be a little costly, but I honestly don't think I can go back to drinking store-bought juice. The juice just tastes that much better... apple juice that tastes like apples, orange juice that tastes like oranges. The shnozberries taste like shnozberries.

I like it so much, that as I'm confident that I will win the current $270 million, I hope to start a juice bar. Similar to a coffee shop, my juice bar would be a place where folks could come in and sit for a while, talk to friends, read a paper, write a report, surf the internet, or even stand awkwardly in the corner, all the while enjoying the greatness of juice. All-natural juice. The future is not milkbars and weirdos, the future is juicebars and happy, successful, virile winners.

I'm only half kidding here. People are so accustomed to the flavors that they buy in the store that they have no idea what freshly made juice actually tastes like. I think that if people tried it, they would love it. Fresh apple juice, yummers. And then, you can start adding all the weird stuff like carrots, mango, broccoli, and spinach.

My Routine, My Problem

Because I'm slowly turning into an exercise guru, I read an article, from Yahoo's frontpage, about "when workouts don't work." In it, it talks about how too many people go to the gym and just sort of mill about, doing a few reps here, a few reps there, or walking leisurely on a treadmill, therefore they don't see the results.

If you're concerned about results, hopefully your smart enough to see the error in your ways if you are just roaming around the gym, otherwise, good for you for going to the gym. It sure as hell beats sitting around watching reruns of Wings, or whatever you may be rather doing.

While I think I am seeing some results, I am well aware of what's keeping me back. And it is definitely not a lazy exercise. I go thirty minutes on the elliptical, it's therapy approved, on level seven and I go "Around the World," at least that's the setting it's on. I try to hit 4 miles in that thirty minutes and I've been doing it pretty consistently lately. And then I do five minute cool down... and then I break and if it's open, I'll walk backwards, leisurely, on the treadmill for five minutes, it's therapy approved. I am usually dripping with set after about five minutes. It feels great. Perhaps, I should read down the article a bit to "Never Changing Your Workout."

My main problem is getting to the gym. February 19th and I've only been 12 times? I should have been close to 12 for just February by now. Anyways, frequent gym-goers, I salute you and hope to one day join you. I'm going to have to if I'm going to hit my year-end goal of 208.

Winner

Played the lottery again on Friday, $1 for a chance at over $170 million. It might not be good odds but with so many mentions of the lottery, you can see that I can't resist all those zeros. And yes, I'm aware that I've got my finger on a great way to save money.

So I played, and for the first time ever in all the times I've played, I won some money. I got three numbers including the power ball, or whatever it's called, for a winnings of $10! Woo-hoo! And the jackpot carried over again and now is up to $220 million! We'll see how much of the $10 I spend on it, but now I won't feel so guilty about buying tickets.

To be honest, I've never felt guilty... maybe a bit foolish, but never guilty.